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Leaving aside that there's nothing the matter with the grammar that's been flagged in the attached screenshot, you can see that Check grammar is turned off. I've also turned off System Preferences > Keyboard > Text > Correct spelling automatically, just in case. Before I report it as a bug, (which is, I suppose, the thing to do), I wonder if Stack Exchange has any other solutions, please.

I'm running macOS 12.5.1 on a 2021 14" M1 MacBook Pro

Additional information: I discovered, half by accident, that if I ask Mail to check the grammar of a different e-mail then it flags additional 'problems'. If you turn off grammar checking it reverts to just flagging this particular one.

Screenshot of correct grammar

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  • 1
    "How are you fixed" ?
    – Solar Mike
    Commented Aug 23, 2022 at 21:19
  • I've found that with macOS preferences, sometimes they get 'stuck' and you need to give them a kick. Check the 'Check Grammar' checkbox, close Mail, and perhaps even do a reboot of the Mac. Then uncheck the checkbox and see if that fixes it.
    – IconDaemon
    Commented Aug 23, 2022 at 23:30
  • It's not questioning the grammar - there are several suggestions it could have made on that - it's questioning the spelling. This is a known irritation. It often queries of/off, their/there etc
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Aug 24, 2022 at 7:37
  • @IconDaemon: Thank you for this. I was pretty sure I'd done as you suggest but, to be on the safe side, I did it again with the same result. I did make a discovery during the process, though, which I'll described in the main post.
    – badgrammar
    Commented Aug 24, 2022 at 9:23
  • @Tetsujin; I don't think it's questioning the spelling. The description of it's perceived error concerns grammar and, anyway, the word is spelled correctly.
    – badgrammar
    Commented Aug 24, 2022 at 9:27

2 Answers 2

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Generally, the grammar in the example sentence is quite poor, but the checker is actually technically suggesting a spelling change, not grammar.

Apple's grammar checker is generally terrible & will let many things pass.
Its spell-checker makes similar mistakes and often will suggest incorrect replacements. Off/of is a common one.
I tend to leave both checkers on just for a visual guide, but I never let it make automatic corrections, just because of its propensity for changing correct words to incorrect ones.
[Also known as "Damn You Auto Correct", or DYAC for short ;)

Normally you would see squiggly lines underneath - which we're not seeing here because "check as you type" is switched off. Green is grammar, red is spelling.
In this particular sentence, though, both the grammar and spell checker will flag it, but with two different explanations underneath. The one in your image is the spelling reason, grammar says "consider 'of' instead" - which is, of course, just as wrong, but that's how we can clearly show the difference…

Spelling…
enter image description here

Grammar…
enter image description here

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  • I concur. I tried the same experiment last night but didn't get round to writing up anything. In addition, sometimes 'off' being flagged was dependant on whether the '-' was used (in preference to a comma), or even whether 'fixed?' ended the sentence. Sometime it wasn't flagged until typed completely as per OP's original. Weird behaviour!
    – Andy Griffiths
    Commented Aug 24, 2022 at 10:34
  • @badgrammar You turned off grammar and spellcheck in System Preferences, did you check if they are still enabled in Mail itself? It has separate settings, but I don't know if one overrides the other. Mail | Edit | Spelling and Grammar
    – Andy Griffiths
    Commented Aug 24, 2022 at 11:19
  • @Andy Griffiths: Thank you. Checking grammar is a subsidiary option when already checking spelling, so you can't just check grammar on its own.
    – badgrammar
    Commented Aug 24, 2022 at 11:24
  • @Tetsujin: Thank you so much for your opinion of the grammar of my example. As you know my point is not about the actual grammar of the writing which, by the way, is an extract from a longer e-mail that was not intended to be in any sort of standard English. In any case, if the checker offers to correct a correctly spelled word as part of its spelling check process, then that's a bug too, isn't it?
    – badgrammar
    Commented Aug 24, 2022 at 11:30
  • …as I mentioned in my very first comment.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Aug 24, 2022 at 11:35
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Seems like this is a bug and that it's been there since Mojave. I stumbled my way to this:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8573939

My previous Mac had been running High Sierra, which explains why I've only just come across it.

My thanks to everyone who's got involved in this thread.

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